


Speak Now

by Heart_Seoul_Soshi



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2017-10-14
Packaged: 2019-01-17 11:07:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12364389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_Seoul_Soshi/pseuds/Heart_Seoul_Soshi
Summary: ~If anyone can give any reason why King Ben and Lady Mal should not be joined together in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.





	Speak Now

**Author's Note:**

> from an anonymous request on tumblr

Evie had watched the light dim from her best friend's eyes ever since it happened.  
  
Six months ago when Mal had come to her with the ring on her finger was when the light first flickered, poorly hidden behind the smile that cut a fissure across Mal's face like a crack in a mask. The whole affair appeared to whirl right past her, or so it seemed to Evie, what with the king's marriage to his high school sweetheart being only the  _grandest_ occasion in all the land.   
  
As royal councilor and bride's best friend, Evie was front and center for all of it; Mal blinking in disbelief when Ben and his parents unveiled the guest list ("...What, did they invite  _all_  of Auradon??"), Mal's head seeming to spin when a cadre of very Jane-esque advisors rushed her day in and day out asking for decisions on catering, floral arrangements, orchestras, venues.  
  
_"Cathedral? Castle? Seaside waterfront? Mountain meadow?"_  
  
_“Mountain meadow? That's a thing??"_  
  
Evie, of course, was designing the dress, and with each fitting noticed how stiffly Mal stood, how woodenly she moved when Evie asked her to turn here, stand there.  
  
Former Queen Belle and King Beast had skipped out on a honeymoon in favor of diplomacy, but Ben had no such intentions as he talked one vacation plan after another with his future wife, and many nights in a row would find Mal making good use of her key to Evie's house and bustling right in, throwing herself wherever Evie happened to be, letting her back be rubbed and her hair be brushed with Evie's fingers and her soft choruses of "It'll be over soon enough, Mal."  
  
When the VKs made a day of accompanying Mal and Ben as they went through floral arrangements, it seemed like she couldn't care less about chrysanthemums or pay attention to peonies, her dull eyes merely playing the part of darting around interestedly and her head nodding with an over-the-top enthusiasm.  
  
The cake,  _that_  was easily Carlos' favorite part, and honestly touched the little part in all the VKs that still remembered life on The Isle with spoiled and crusted food—touched that little part in all the VKs except Mal, that is. While Ben laughed and good-naturedly entertained Jay and Carlos' requests for the most extravagant of cakes ("Fifteen layers? Really?") ("Fifteen layers, Ben."), Evie had caught Mal off on her own, staring at the shelf of custom-made cake toppers of herself and Ben, hand-in-hand, donning wedding clothes.  
  
"Would it be too crazy a suggestion to guess that you're thinking strawberry frosting?" Evie joked.  
  
Mal's laugh was empty and hollow, and she tore her gaze away from the little ceramic Mals and Bens.  
  
Going over to Evie's and staying up with her well into the dark, early morning hours, trying to get her vows down. Mal would trip over her words, forget words entirely, silently fight with herself to bring more emotion into what she was saying. At one point Mal just let her notecards slip from her fingers and scatter onto the floor, dropping herself on the foot of Evie's bed with the most soul-heavy of sighs.  
  
"I never thought it would be this hard," Mal muttered, her voice muffled somewhat with her face buried in her hands.  
  
And Evie watched her, The Girl from The Isle, all defeated and lost and a complete shell of the Mal she'd grown up with.  
  
"...Yeah. Neither did I."  
  
Evie couldn't exactly summon up any shred of surprise when she found herself dreading the wondrous day just as much as Mal seemed to be, something buried deep inside her heart knew all along that having to watch Mal marry her King Charming would not be the joyous affair it was meant to be. But she was not the kind of girl who should be rudely speaking out on such a white veil occasion, even if Mal was not the kind of girl who should be marrying the wrong guy.  
  
It was Evie there with her in the dressing room on the big day, tucking one single straying strand of purple behind Mal's ear and hating herself on some level for thinking that her best friend would look so much better in some sort of dark color as opposed to this white.  
  
"...Are you ready?" Evie softly asked, still unable to stop herself from looking Mal up and down regardless of the color of her dress.  
  
Mal was looking herself up and down too, in the mirror, eyeing her reflection with confusion serving as the one light in her darkened eyes, like she didn't recognize the figure staring back at her.  
  
"...M?"  
  
Mal turned her head with little effort, just enough of an angle to see Evie.  
  
"Are you ready?" Evie asked again.  
  
"...Yeah."  
  
So inside a massive cathedral filled to the brim, filled with royals, dignitaries,  _complete strangers_ , did Evie stand behind Mal at the alter, clutching a poor bouquet far too tightly. How many eyes were on her? On Mal and Ben? On Jay and Carlos in place behind the groom? Evie felt like saying a thousand wouldn't be too much of a stretch, it certainly felt like a thousand. Whether the slight ringing in her ears was her own or somehow an echo of Mal's, Evie's attention had glazed over all of Fairy Godmother's words as she officiated the wedding, until one string of words in particular snapped her focus back to life.  
  
"Should anyone show just cause why the royal couple, King Benjamin Florian of Auradon and Lady Mal Bertha of The Isle of The Lost should not and cannot be joined forever in matrimony, let them speak now, or forever hold their peace."  
  
A pause.   
  
Evie's chest burning with her racing heart.  
  
And then her feet stepping forward.  
  
"...Mal," she all but whispered.  
  
Horrified looks from everyone in the crowd.  
  
"...Mal, take a good look inside yourself. Is this really what you want?"  
  
Ben's eyes wide with shock as he held Mal's hands in his own, Fairy Godmother stunned beyond belief, the boys' jaws on the floor. And Mal, for the first time since the engagement ring was slipped on her finger, feeling a flicker returning to her heart and to her eyes.  
  
"...No," she admitted in a breath that was six months of a sigh just waiting to be released.  
  
Evie felt she had a six month long sigh waiting within her too.  
  
"Leave with me," she said.  
  
Mal finally pulled her hands free from Ben's.   
  
"...With you?" she repeated.  
  
"Me, Mal. Evie. The one who knows that you don't want to be married in front of a chamber full of people you don't even know, the one who's heart ached with every flower arrangement shoved in your face and every page of fonts you had to flip through to decide on the one to use for your invitations. The one who knows you better than you know yourself right now, because she knows that you love Ben, really, you do, but you're not  _in_  love with him...the one who would rather risk the wrath of the entire kingdom than see you throw your happiness away for a life with someone who could never really give you any."  
  
Oh, the whispers were deafening. A contradiction if Evie ever knew one. But she was only looking at Mal, Mal whose face was a maze of different emotions, an honestly welcome sight after the months of masks she'd forced herself to wear.  
  
And when Mal left her ring behind, and Evie left her bouquet, and both girls tossed their heels aside to make a break for the massive oak doors amidst an uproar of surprise and camera flashes, light shone bright within the almost-bride's eyes once again.  
  
They didn't stop running until Evie screeched the limo to a halt outside an abandoned art studio clinging to the outskirts of Auradon City, once belonging to Mal until art and Lady of the Court duties became two things she simply could not balance. With bare feet, messy hair, and exhilarated breaths the two found themselves sitting on the roof, a perfect, magical view of Auradon laying before them as the sky was just beginning to color orange with sunset. Here, the silence was comfortable as Mal drew her legs up and hugged her knees to her chest, seeing Evie letting her hair down out of the corner of her eye.  
  
"...I can't believe that after all these years you held on to your flair for mischief," Mal laughed.  
  
A real laugh. Genuine. Bouncing her shoulders instead of splintering a mask.  
  
"One of us had to," Evie held her head up proudly.  "Really thought it would be you, though."  
  
"Yeah? So did I."  
  
Another laugh from Mal, the sunset reflecting in her eyes.  
  
" _A lot_  of damage control to do later," she noted, turning to really look at Evie.  
  
"A royal councilor can handle it."  
  
Evie smiled easily, enjoying the warm spring breeze drifting past, tossing hair of purple and blue.  
  
"...E? Can I say something?" Mal asked, ducking her eyes down for a second.  
  
"Yeah, M?"  
  
Slowly, Mal's hand crept over to Evie's, intertwining their fingers together as rays of orange and red shone down on them.  
  
"...The one who thought I'd fallen asleep rehearsing my wedding vows, when really I was awake and listening to you whispering your own vows to me the entire time."  
  
If Evie were a less proud person, her face would've stained bright red just then. As it was, she kept her cool, a pair of widened brown eyes the only sign of surprise before she reigned herself in.  
  
"...Think there's any chance I'll actually get to say them to you some day?"  
  
Mal made a big, long show of puzzling over it, until a smile and a couple nods took over for her deep and thoughtful frown.  
  
"Yeah, Evie.  I think there is." 


End file.
